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Week 22 of 52 Changing from Making a Living to Making a Life

December 4, 2012 //
4

The First Component to the Law of Dharma is to Discover your True Self

–Deepak Chopra

REFLECTIONS

Here it is Tuesday, and I am writing my Monday post…and I am happy about this. I wanted to just be in the presence of my daughters and my nephew over the last few days, writing when I could…accepting that I may miss my ‘self-imposed’ deadline… Fast Forward 2 minutes…serenity morphing into incredulity slipping towards outright rage as I look for what I had written last evening and realize it is GONE!  I did not save it correctly and so today, I will have to start from SCRATCH! NOW I AM BEING TESTED! Can I accept that I do not control my world, I merely live in it…and that maybe yesterday’s writing was just not meant to be posted?? I was so tired while writing last night that I almost felt stoned…I was waxing on about Siddhartha, and his belief that every person must create his own journey to ‘spiritual enlightenment’… each of us being such a unique individual that the path must be suitably personalized. Siddhartha accepted that his friend Govinda wanted to follow Buddha’s supremely wise philosophy, but that he, Siddhartha, wanted the freedom to choose his own path. I had been thinking about how unconventional…maybe even unorthodox my ‘path’ has been. Below is some of what I can recall…

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

MAKING A LIVING

In the past, when determining my level of success in this world, I relied on very masculine, achievement oriented, criteria. I would tally up my assets and accomplishments(including those of my children and husband-extensions of me )then add the people I knew, the places I had been, the knowledge I had  gleaned etc. In my mind I was ‘doing’ very well…making a very good living. I had achieved a high level of success in this material realm. My definition of success was supported by those around me, so it became nigh on impossible to knock me off its pursuit.

There was one area in my life I could not control or dominate… one area that brought me to my knees…and thankfully, eventually, to my senses. Only a power greater than my ego could successfully ‘de-smug’ me. I could not make my body cooperate with my life plan. I expected it to live up to my goals of perfection …I exercised maniacally, in leg warmers with matching leotards and scrunchies…I kept track of my BMI, while following various fad diets(the Adkins, the grapefruit etc.) all in the hopes of looking like Jane Fonda. At 29 I got my first nudge from the Universe, trying to knock me into balance by knocking me off balance….sudden vision and mobility issues…diagnosis… Ankylosing Spondylitis…which I ignored…I had a plan and a debilitating disease was not part of it.

MAKING A LIFE

1. EXPERIENCING EMOTION

I was never in awe of those artists who rendered realistic representations of life. This included technical musicians, writers of non-fiction, or photo-realism artists. Not that I didn’t appreciate the skill associated with a creation that deliberately portrayed reality as objectively as was possible…it’s more that I understood this type of depiction…linear, logical, accurate renditions of our material world…devoid of personal interpretation and emotion. This was all I ever experienced of our world…nothing spiritual, metaphysical or transcendental.

Photo-Realism

Conversely, I have always admired and envied those artists, writers and musicians who were expressionists…who created pieces in response to their inner emotions. Their work was unfathomable and perplexing, but in the artists’ efforts to express their emotion, a visceral response was elicited within me. In my desperation to experience my life emotionally, not just intellectually, I began to seek out Modern Art. Over the years I transitioned from The National Gallery in London to the Tate Modern.

Expressionists

2. FINDING MY VOICE

My only childhood experience with singing, was as a competitor in Festivals. My Mother spent so many hours perfecting my delivery that by performance day, it was no doubt difficult to discern whose voice you heard, my Mother’s or mine. I was an utterly traumatized singing mimic. Unfortunately mimicking appropriate behaviours became my modus operandi for all aspects of life. In the journey to finding my own voice, it was necessary to release the pain of this restrictive singing. My Herbalist, Annette Bossert, suggested I sing with Pamela Alexander, a trained practitioner who uses the techniques of The Naked Voice.(originated by Chloe Goodchild)

My very first encounter with Pamela occurred several years ago, when I visited her group in Calgary. Pamela led the singing as she played the Harmonium, while the attendees joined her in a ‘free voice’ style. Halfway through the first song, I began to tear up. I made every effort to CONTROL myself, but I couldn’t stop my tears. I had not cried in front of anyone, never mind 20 strangers, since I was 10. Mortified, I surreptitiously reached into my purse to grab a handful of kleenex. By the 3rd or 4th song, what I was doing could no longer be characterized as crying…I was weeping uncontrollably and unconsolably…like a child with a broken heart… Pamela stopped the singing and kindly asked if there was anything she  or the group could do to help me…resulting in me bawling even louder. I had never before experienced a human being with such an innate sense of compassion! Although I never stopped crying that evening, this group of caring people listened to me as I hiccupped and sobbed my way through an explanation for my tears. This beautiful singing, rich with harmonizing, chanting and drumming was the antithesis to my world of competitive voice production. Pamela’s belief was that in our singing with her, there were NO WRONG NOTES.

 I continued to sing with Pamela until the image I painted, symbolizing my voice, changed from a black box imprisoned behind bars, to a colourful and free bird. Singing freely, without judgement or correction, was a crucial step towards gaining the confidence to give voice to any idea I may have…point in fact…The Other Woman Blog!

ASPIRATIONS FOR WEEK 22 OF 52

CHANGING FROM MAKING A LIVING TO MAKING A LIFE

Within me, as within each of us, a true self exists. Like the journey of Siddhartha, I have been on the road to materialism for some time. Only in unearthing my true and ‘higher’ self has my determination of what constitutes success changed. I believe each person’s path is unique and deserves to be sanctioned by all. No expression of the self is too wild or too bizarre!

So for week 22 of 52 I will continue to embrace my journey, in all its manifestations(including the inadvertent erasing of an entire post)…thus making a life, not just a living.

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Categories Arthritis, Finding your Voice, love, Self Determining, the other woman, transformation

Week 21 of 52 Changing My Lipstick to Red

November 26, 2012 //
0

“You Fill Up My Senses”

-John Denver

REFLECTIONS

Last week’s post was slow to arrive; neither ideas, feelings or thoughts would flow. I wrote all of it in bed, sneezing and coughing. I felt forlorn and dispirited, and questioned the value of my Blog. I had an ugly warty troll under my bridge, frightening me with his threats to devour me if I dare cross to the new experience on the other side. And just as in the Norwegian Fairy Tale, “Three Billy Goats Gruff”, I had to muster up my strong, confident self, and knock my troll/fear into submission, allowing me to cross and see what lay before me to discover.

Fearing the Troll beneath the Bridge

The first glimmer of the new, came from a snippet in a dream image. I love the directives I receive from out and beyond my perceivable world, from the magnificence of the Unified Field. In this image, I glimpsed a sensual me, wearing a flowing, beautifully textured dress in hues of subdued yet vibrant colour. I scoffed when I awoke(troll still present) saying this will never be me…I will never find The Otherness of my Femininity, the mysterious, the sensual. I will always wear pants and shades of black. Over the next days the image would not leave my mind, so I began to turn towards it, giving it permission to surface from my unconscious. This process of letting a repressed feeling up is always patience ( I was planning to write the word painful, but today my writing is being interrupted by events beyond my control and I was asking for patience as I was writing…Freudian Slips as I write) Repressed feelings, as they are allowed to surface, create pain. Understandably, I will avoid pain if I can, but I have had enough examples to believe that under the pain, lies an authentic but repressed aspect of myself. So some days later, I had the urge to create a collage. I chose my most soulful piece of music and began to cut out images and words that attracted me.

Below is the music I listened to… Pablo Casals playing “El Cant Dels Ocells” , the “Bird Song”

This is the collage I created. I called it Duets-Touch Women Touch Men

Duets-Touch Women Touch Men

Clearly a shift in my sensibility. No residue of Mother Mary in this collage. No sense of a woman contained. And what else? The presence of men! I am thrilled at this shift, and can’t help but wonder why I would ever repress such power and passion. Today, I have no clear understanding, but I am glad that I took the plunge into the abyss of the unconscious.

After completing this collage I went for a walk along the shoreline near my home. In the cacophony of bird song, I took 2 photos. The first half of my walk, I was shadowed by a pair of Trumpeter Swans, who swam throughout the harbour side by side, eating plants while ‘talking’ to each other…a breathtaking scene as I contemplated the power of my collage.

Blissful Love

After 30 minutes of watching these love birds, while imagining myself in such a perfect pairing, I was startled out of my reverie by another bird, a Canadian Goose. This bird was alone and seemingly in distress. It took some time for me to realize, in horror, the cruelty of her injury.

Injured Canada Goose

An arrow through her foot. I vacillated between feeling useless and feeling enraged. There was nothing I could do to alleviate the pain inflicted on her by some mindless human. I called Mountainaire Avian Rescue, but do not know the goose’s fate.

Emotional swings and roundabouts…both bird species are loyal mates…first a reverie of true love…then an abrupt and rude awakening…this poor goose brought to a screeching standstill by an arrow through her foot…with her beloved no more. Symbolically, the tragedy of the pierced Canada Goose, brings to mind the ‘not so beautiful’ aspects of a loving relationship…the misuse or disuse of love…the dereliction of loyalty or devotion…the psychological warts, inadequacies and misunderstandings…every relationship has some less than lovely attributes.

Bringing to mind Hamlet’s famous soliloquy:

To be, or not to be: that is the question:

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them?—To die,—to sleep

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to,

To be, in my mind, echoes all the proponents of  “living in the moment’. Not to be, is slipping into unconsciousness, through alcohol, food, or British Mystery Series. So I can avoid love and instead fill my life with distractions, or I can choose love, expecting to encounter from time to time, love’s not-so-beautiful aspects.

ASPIRATIONS FOR WEEK 21 OF 52

CHANGING MY LIPSTICK TO RED

Not only did I wake up singing Thursday morning, I was singing ‘Annie’s Song’, by John Denver.  

You fill up my senses

Like a night in a forest

Like the mountains in springtime

Like a walk in the rain

Like a storm in the desert

Like a sleepy blue ocean

You fill up my senses

Come fill me again

 And then I remembered…D. I had seen him the previous evening. Zowie! When I closed my eyes to focus on this rich sensation, the intensity created a bit of a swoon…

During my visit though, I felt an inward shift from Mary Magdalene to Mother Mary when his daughter appeared. Not only is this my most comfortable essence, I felt this appropriate. The problem was that I could not shift out of nurturing Mother. Then in driving to a nearby restaurant, I shifted into BORING WIFE. ARRRRRGH. At the time I was not aware of what had happened, just that I felt as though someone had taken a remote device and hit mute… anesthetizing my emotions. I wasn’t even Between2Marys…I had descended into the benumbing hell of a passionless existence.

So for Week 21 of 52 I will remember that my lipstick is red…reminding me to allow the intensity of emotions to thrive within me, rather than impeding their expression… leaving me in a safe but hellishly sterile stupor.

Live in Creativity-let passion soar

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Categories love, Self Determining, the other woman, transformation, Wild Instinctual Woman

Week 20 of 52 Changing from Scarcity to Abundance

November 19, 2012 //
0

“A thousand candles can be lit by a single candle and yet not diminish the first candle’s light.

Happiness is never diminished by being shared.”

-Buddha

REFLECTIONS

Unbuttoning the Virgo this past week, has been exhilarating! On several occasions I abandoned my need for purposeful encounters and just had fun…I spent time with others accomplishing nothing, just being! I went out to dance with no expectation other than the sensation of dancing. Yes, it’s true…I left the couch this past Saturday night! I drove myself, in the dark, to a bar with a band, and danced with wild abandon…with women…no men were asking and I didn’t care! I just wanted to dance! I also went on a date with a good looking man and had a mindless time. This is Virgo Unbuttoned!

 I am bubbling with enthusiasm, like a child who comes rushing in from playing, panting, tripping over words, describing the wonderment of an innocuous event. I feel as excited as I did when I was 6 and discovered an ant carrying a cake crumb I had dropped, that was bigger than its own body.

Amazing Ant!

My first conscious experience of exuberance happened while doing a 10 day hike to Takakkaw Falls in the Canadian Rockies. It was unusual for me to do such an arduous hike, let alone carry most of my own things.(note in photo that the guys packs are ‘slightly’ bulkier than mine) But it was not unusual for me to be with 2 men, neither of whom I was involved with, but each wishing they could be that special guy! My Mother always reminded me that my favourite pastime as a child was playing house…problem being that I never stopped…I have felt like a doll being placed in various positions and situations…with no apparent will of my own.

But I had one moment on this hike that was different. Early one morning, in an unexpected act of independence, I walked to the edge of a waterfall, and showered under it. The exuberance I experienced from the extremely cold water and the opulence of my view, created a spiritual awakening. I was jolted into the present moment, no longer observing my life from a safe distance. Although unable to describe why this moment was so monumental, I knew I had experienced something new. 

Spiritual Awakening at Takakkaw Falls

Me, with David and Bob

2 decades later, when I began Jungian analysis, this experience was my reference point for what I wanted to achieve. I had clung to this intense and thrilling moment knowing that if it could happen once, it could happen twice. I begged my analyst to help me. I was exhausted from years of playing house, living with muted emotion…being remote, removed and repressed. I told her that my only palpable emotion came from a daily re-creation of the waterfall, where I would be jolted alive,  into exuberance, under a 3 minute blast of cold water in the shower. Self induced shock therapy! The title of my Week 4 of 52, post(July 30 2012) was Changing My Fun Factor. Interesting to note that the ‘intention’ to have fun took 4 months to become integrated.

Exuberance, that’s what I’m looking for in a cold shower!

During the past 2 weeks I have been doing Deepak Chopra’s 21 Day Meditation Challenge, Creating Abundance. I was particularly drawn to the message of day 9, Abundance and the Law of Giving, because it resembled my efforts to be altruistic in Week 3 of 52, Changing My Expectations of Love. Back in the summer, I realized that I was attached to the outcome of my generosity. I expected what I received to balance what I gave…specific to each person and situation. If I brought wine for dinner, I expected reciprocity. Constant monitoring took time, created resentment and in fact MISSED THE POINT of the Law of Giving. The natural world is sustained in a flow of abundance, a perpetual process of giving and receiving. An apple tree absorbs sunlight, nutrients and water and in response produces delicious fruit. The point that I missed was that neither the sun, nor the soil, nor the cloud that willingly gave up what they held in abundance, ate the apple they helped produce. They did not look at the tree and say, “Hey, I gave to you, what are you giving me?” There are no hoarders in the natural world. The sun, cloud and soil were not diminished by giving to the tree, and were restored by other natural processes in our abundant world.

Bountiful Universe, a continual flow of giving and receiving!

So I have been experimenting this past week. I want to be loved for the woman that I am, so I will offer love to each and every person I encounter for the person that they are…right then. I intentionally did not hoard my love. So back to my date with Mr Handsome. It was readily apparent to me that he and I had very differing views on everything from personal transformation to compassion to the sharing of one’s wealth. In the past I would have felt spiritually superior, which would have expressed itself in obsequious flattery, or subtle derision and denigration. To my surprise and delight I had 5 hours of simple fun. I shared my perspective without judgment of his, which allowed me to be a loving presence. I did not worry if I received love back, believing that in adding love to the Unified Field, I was creating an undulating flow in my environment, that would sooner or later grace me with love.

ASPIRATIONS FOR WEEK 20 of 52

CHANGING FROM SCARCITY TO ABUNDANCE

I have had the best week ever! Is this because I have tapped into the Unified Field of Abundance? From this vantage point, I believe that giving joy, does not deplete me of my joy, giving a gift does not deplete me of my material resources, giving love does not deplete me of love…in being free to give while remaining open to receive,  I join the undulating flow that is our Universe.

So for Week 20 of 52, I will continue to to offer that which I want to receive.

Offering the love I want to receive

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Categories love, Self Determining, the other woman, transformation, VIRGO, Wild Instinctual Woman

WEEK 19 OF 52 Changing into the Unbuttoned Virgo

November 11, 2012 //
0

LEST WE FORGET

I want to start this week’s Blog, not talking about myself…for a change. I want to remember my parents and the scarifies they both made during the 5 long years of  WWII. In 1940, when they were 20, the war had begun. They decided to get married before Dad joined the Canadian Navy. He sailed on one of Canada’s oldest fighting Corvettes, the HMCS Sackville, now docked in Halifax, as a Naval Memorial. He sailed out of Halifax, protecting the convoys in The Battle of the Atlantic. I am so proud of him and my Mom who travelled across Canada to offer her love and support during these troubled times.

As an expression of my gratitude to you and all veterans, I will try to live by the words that I utter, taking action in support of my beliefs.

Dad, 5 years at sea, fighting for our freedom

Mom, loving her Sailor

REFLECTIONS

Eroticism is one of the basic means of self-knowledge, as indispensable as poetry

-Anais Nin

The 1990 movie, ‘Henry and June’, was nearly my undoing. The movie depicts the love triangle between Henry Miller, his wife June and the writer, Anais Nin. Although this occurred a decade before I discovered  my husband’s infidelity, I intuited then, that he had Miller’s predilection for a bohemian lifestyle, including machinations with other women. To be honest we were both intrigued by the idea of lives lived outside the strictures of marriage in middle America, but my fear of being abandoned superseded any curiosity I may have had. I then created the most hideous and wicked fight and refused any further conversation on or near this subject… for 22 years.

Henry, is he in control?

The Universe has a way of making fun of us and our fears! Of the millions of movies that have been made, guess which one was put in front of me to discuss? Here is how this tale unfolded.

D walked into my life, while I was hunting for a new kitchen with my friend, Lori. He designs and builds… a carpenter…just like the man in the lives of my 2 Marys. D was one of the saving graces from last Saturday. He had come by my cottage that day, to discuss design options for the kitchen. We talked animatedly, and with ease, for at least an hour before he stood up abruptly and pulled out his tape measure. I thought he might be interested in me the woman, as much as me the customer, when he said, “I’ll take your measurements and then be on my way.” Women and men, in Freudian slips…my favourite source of humour.

Freud, hoisted by his own petard!

So, this past Friday, D returned to my cottage, after his day of work, ostensibly to discuss the design he had created. (Is my writing filled with double entendres today?) Friday evening, over wine and food, symbolically… life and understanding, I conversed with D. A few days before, he had asked to read my blog, which has been off limits to the men I may be interested in. After reflecting, I agreed to send him the link. His open-hearted sensibility established my trust. I warned him that he was and may continue to be a source of discussion on The Other Woman Blog, but he remained unfazed.

At the 2 hour point of the evening, D asked if I had seen the movie, Henry and June. My colour heightened, my blood pressure rose…my body shut down my ears, as I thought to myself. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Not again. The most interesting man I have met in ages and he’s no different…intrigued by other women, while he sits with me…as I sank into reverie, no longer listening, I planned a way to end the evening.

And then a word D said broke through my barrier…something about me and Anais Nin…I looked up, taken aback. He was saying something completely unexpected. He was noting the parallelism of my journey, recorded in this Blogmoir, to Anais Nin’s exploration of her femininity, depicted in the movie.(based on her diary) I was taken aback for several reasons. First of all, a man referencing an indie movie about relationships? Incredulous! Secondly, he did not talk about Henry, or the male perspective…but most importantly, he understood my journey and was actually interested in me and my foray to the wild side. Through this discussion with D, I was embarrassed to realize that back in 1990, I had entirely missed the point of the movie. The story was Anais’s, never Henry’s. She was a woman defining her life, making choices that interested her, outside the conventions and restrictions of traditional life. 

Anais, contemplating her position with her husband and Henry Miller

Aspirations for Week 19 OF 52

CHANGING INTO THE UNBUTTONED VIRGO

Comments and Advice to a Virgo, from any and all of the Astrological signs.

Virgo, you are a pain in the ass. Stop regulating your breathing and stop color-coordinating the  items in your shopping cart. Please let me hear you fart, just once. Obsessive-compulsive disorder? A nice euphemism for the word “Virgo”. Virgo, you use pointers, markers and elaborate charts to describe the metaphysical. You have a special toothbrush, just for tile grout. Virgo, surrender your brush collection, your brooms and sponges and your coveted squeegee collection, and lower the buttons on your blouse so I can see your neck. I appreciate that you love to do anyone’s laundry, but when you separate everything by colour and fabric and end up with 14 loads of 3 things apiece, it really makes me want to sic a naked Aquarius on you.

At Suzanne’s suggestion and the countless friends and family members who have given me similar ‘tips’, I am going to become The Unbuttoned Virgo!

Just to prove it, I am going to break a few rules today…(inner judgmental voice…bad bad virgo)… I’m posting on the WRONG day and I am UNDER the word count  and I’m going to Victoria without a to-do list.

So for Week 19 of 52, I will be THE UNBUTTONED VIRGO

The Unbuttoned Virgo

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Categories infidelity, love, Self Determining, the other woman, transformation, VIRGO, Wild Instinctual Woman
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